A few weeks ago, Bishop Riesbeck mentioned that he had left the chrism poured on his head at his episcopal ordination overnight and had noticed the sweet smell of the holy oil as he fell asleep. Sometimes after their Confirmation, children will remark that they have noticed the perfume in the chrism.

You see, to the olive oil that is the base of sacred chrism is added a spicy perfume, generally balsam, which graces the air with a sweet scent. This fragrance gets into one’s pores and, like the oil used to anoint Jesus before his death, it can fill a room or a house (John 12.3b).

Saint Paul in writing to the Corinthians says that we who have been anointed as Christians are called to be “the aroma of Christ” to the people around us: “We are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; 16to the one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life” (2 Corinthians 2.15-16a).

The metaphor of the Christian apostle as an “odor” or “fragrance” conveys the wafting of incense (which we use several times at Mass to reverence Christ, the altar; Christ God’s word; and Christ our sacrifice). Paul says that his way of giving himself in love for the sake of others—as we priests are called to do—reveals Jesus to those around him.

﻿

Paul associates the priestly life with an aroma or fragrance also in his letter to the Philippians where he says that the generous monetary offering the faithful made to his apostolic service was a sacrifice pleasing to God (Philippians 4.18). In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul says that the Messiah Jesus was a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God because he gave himself in love for the sake of others (Ephesians 5.2).

With the metaphor of being a fragrance, Paul says that he participates in and embodies Jesus’ self-giving love.In living this way, Paul makes Christ known.Paul, and by extension all Christians, are like crushed, burning grains of incense: they make Jesus present in the world such that others can sense him and be attracted to him. This is the case because the risen Jesus is actually present within them.

Paul says the presence of the aroma of Christ in the world has two opposite effects. He says that among those perishing, Paul’s way of being an apostle wafts like an odor of death. Such people interpret the Christian way of life as folly and weakness; they fail to recognize the significance of the cross of Christ. On the other hand, among those being saved, Paul’s way of life wafts like the odor of life. That is, they grasp that the apostolic way of living shows forth the paradoxical life and power of Christ. Choosing to follow Jesus is the way to eternal life.

In the reading from the Book of Revelation, we are reminded that Jesus died for our sins out of love for us and to make us a church of holiness, a royal, priestly people, something we cannot achieve on our own.

Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the First-born from the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth ... loves us and washed us from our sins by his blood.

Though we are tainted by the residue of sin, we encounter the reconciling love of God made manifest in the sacramental life of our church. We clergy, religious and laity are called to maintain integrity of life in all that we are and in all that we do. In effect we are to show that we are on the way to living in holiness of life. Of ourselves none of us is up to this challenge, but with God’s grace great things are possible.

Since the bishop is the only minister in the diocese who may consecrate chrism, this Mass highlights his ministry and the union of all the faith communities with him. Though he cannot baptize and confirm all the candidates for these sacraments in all the parishes of the diocese, there is a sense in which the Apostle of the local church becomes symbolically present in the chrism which the priests and deacons use.

This Mass of Chrism recognizes the ministry of priests. In a few moments, I will invite the members of the presbyterate of Ottawa and priests from other dioceses who are here for a time, as well as the religious who collaborate with us to renew their commitment of service and to receive the prayers and support of the people.

For all of us long to know the joy that the people of Nazareth felt on the day when Jesus proclaimed the fulfillment among them of the prophecy of Isaiah. Recently, Pope Francis underlined this in his Apostolic Exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel.

Let us pray that every priest may know how to communicate the Lord's joy to those who come not only to be set free of their burdens but to discern how the Lord is calling the zealous and faithful Catholics of our Church of Ottawa to grow in the holiness proper to each one’s state of life.

Let us commend to the Lord our retired priests—especially the ill and infirm—that they may know spiritual consolation.

This evening we recall that, since our celebration of the Chrism Mass last year, the Lord has called to himself two priests who served the francophone sector of our diocese with distinction, Msgr. Paul Racine and the Marist priest, père Pierre Allard. We recall also the deaths in our diaconal families: Deacon Valmont Berubé of the French sector, and Deacons Kenneth Davies and Edward Webster of the English Sector.May the Lord grant to these servants of his the fullness of eternal life.

On Sunday, the universal church observed the Twenty-ninth World Youth Day.This year, the Archdiocese of Quebec is preparing the “Youth Summit/Montée Jeunesse”, dedicated to affirming youth, encouraging initiatives and sustaining youth-friendly parishes and to honouring our newly-canonized Saint Francois de Laval and Sainte Marie de l’Incarnation. We accompany the youth who will attend with our prayer and assure them that their gifts are important to the life of our diocesan church.

Please join with me in begging the Lord of the harvest for generous young men and women who will hear and answer the call to serve God's people as priests and religious.

In this period when the Church is preparing two synods of bishops to consider the challenges faced by married people and their families—especially those who have known separation, divorce, remarriage, blended families—we pray that our archdiocese may see a flourishing of men and women witnessing to their commitment to Christ in good marriages, and women and men living dedicated, faith-filled lives as single persons, becoming a blessing to the church and the world.

May I close my remarks by commending to your prayers during the Easter season a petition to Our Blessed Mother Mary, the Mother of Priests? That by her intercession she may obtain from her Son, the Risen Lord Jesus, the grace that our weak and timid spirits may become strong and joyful ones, to the praise and glory of God.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Today, His Holiness Pope Francis accepted the resignation of the Most Reverend Nicola De Angelis, C.F.I.C., as Bishop of Peterborough, according to canon 401 §1; and has appointed the Most Reverend William Terrence McGrattan, currently Auxiliary Bishop of Toronto, as Bishop of Peterborough. The Holy Father has appointed the Most Reverend Nicola De Angelis, C.F.I.C., as Apostolic Administrator of Peterborough until the new Bishop takes canonical possession of the diocese.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

“For me, St. Anchieta means the image of an apostolic and missionary church; a person of faith who went to the peripheries of the world and human existence that which Pope Francis asks of us today; and someone who relentlessly went out to sow the seeds of the Kingdom transcending all geographical boundaries.”— Jesuit José Célio dos Santos

On April 3, Pope Francis canonized Blessed Jesuit Father José de Anchieta, a patron of the country’s music and literature known as the “Apostle of Brazil”. Blessed Anchieta, along with Blessed Marie de l'Incarnation, known as the Mother of the Canadian Church, and Blessed Francois de Laval, the first bishop of Quebec, were canonized by “equivalent canonization." All three saints were beatified together in 1980.

They were put on a fast track to sainthood after Pope Francis waived some of the usual procedures in response to requests from the Canadian and Brazilian bishops' conferences. President of the Brazilian bishops' conference, Cardinal Raymundo Damasceno Assis of Aparecida, announced in December that their request for Anchieta's canonization had been accepted by Pope Francis, though a miracle attributed to his intercession had not been officially confirmed.

For "equivalent canonizations," the pope adds the name of the new saint to the universal calendar of saints, without verifying that a miracle was performed through his or her intercession and without holding a formal canonization ceremony. Pope Francis last used the process to canonize Jesuit Saint Peter Fabern December 2013.

According to Jesuit Father Marc Lindeijer, assistant postulator of sainthood causes for the Jesuits, Pope Francis will celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving on April 24 for the new St. Anchieta. Bishops and pilgrims from Brazil and from Tenerife, Spain, where the saint was born, will join the pope for the celebration in the Jesuits’ Church of St. Ignatius in Rome.

The canonization process for Anchieta has been in the process for centuries, according to Jesuit José Célio dos Santos, a Brazilian scholastic studying at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. “People testified to his outstanding faith and remarked on his profound apostolic witness, but clashes between the Jesuits and European kingdoms led to the suspension of the process,” he said. “Now, Anchieta’s canonization will take place in the context of the bicentenary celebration of the restoration of the Society of Jesus. His canonization is not only a gift for the church in Brazil, but also for the Society of Jesus.”

“We have many reasons for being grateful to Pope Francis for placing José de Anchieta before the world as a new and outstanding example of sanctity,” said Jesuit Father General Adolfo Nicolás. “For the Society of Jesus it is an occasion to renew with intensity the search for those horizons which he pursued and which are always new: sensitivity in the face of ethnic diversity and religious, cultural, and social pluralism; the untiring development of a fresh creative freedom and a responsible capacity for improvisation; the constant search for inculturated expressions of the Christian and evangelizing experience.”

Jesuit Father José de Anchieta was born on March 19, 1534, in the Canary Islands. An intensely religious individual, he became a Jesuit novice in 1551 and traveled to Brazil as a missionary with the third group of Jesuits sent to the New World in 1553. He and his colleague, Manuel da Nóbrega, founded a Jesuit college in Rio de Janeiro. Despite Anchieta‘s precarious health and the difficulty of his journeys, he traveled widely across Brazil for the next 10 years, consolidating the expanding missionary work of the Jesuits. In 1577, the fourth superior general of the Jesuits, Everard Mercurian, appointed Anchieta provincial superior of the Jesuits in Brazil.

Always an agent of reconciliation, Anchieta was also involved in dialogue with the Tamoyo tribe up to the point of being taken as a hostage and living among them as a prisoner for five months as the negotiations dragged on. He coped with the loneliness by composing a poem in honor of Mary, writing the Latin verses in wet sand on the seashore and then committing them to memory. He transcribed the whole poem on paper once he finally returned to São Vicente, all 4,172 lines.

Anchieta died in Brazil on June 9, 1597, at Reritiba, Espírito Santo, and was mourned by more than 3,000 native peoples who valued all he had done for them both spiritually and in the promotion of their human dignity.

José Célio dos Santos said he believes St. Anchieta’s canonization will help Brazilians rediscover their Catholic faith and reconnect the country to its early history. “Anchieta’s canonization would challenge us to re-examine our prominent image of him as the great co-founder of São Paulo, which has become one of the largest cities in the world. Surely his canonization will cause us to recognize him as an ambassador of the Christian faith in Brazil,” he said.

St. Anchieta is an exceptionally prominent Brazilian historical figure, according to dos Santos. “As one of those instrumental in the formation of Brazil, he appears in virtually all historical literatures used in schools all over Brazil, such that every Brazilian has some knowledge of Anchieta,” he said.

“I mostly admire him for his respect and sensitivity to the cultures of the native/indigenous peoples,” dos Santos said. “For me, St. Anchieta means the image of an apostolic and missionary church; a person of faith who went to the peripheries of the world and human existence that which Pope Francis asks of us today; and someone who relentlessly went out to sow the seeds of the Kingdom transcending all geographical boundaries.” [Sources: Catholic News Service, National Catholic Reporter, Sacred Space, Jesuit Curia, Missouri Province]

* * * * *

BISHOP PEARSE LACEY MOURNED

I will fly to Toronto for the funeral Monday morning, April 7 of Bishop M. Pearse Lacey at Blessed Trinity Church in Toronto's Willowdale neighbourhood (where Regis College was located formerly [1961-76]).

Bishop Lacey had been the Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Toronto's Western Region where he had established an office on Flagship Drive, next to St. Patrick's Church in Mississauga and where he lived until his retirement in 1993. As his successor there from 1995-1998, I enjoyed living in that simple dwelling. Because of our mutual responsibility for this booming region, he and I often had conversations and I found him invariably supportive of my initial steps as a bishop in Toronto and whenever we met afterwards during my service in Nova Scotia and in Ottawa.

May the Lord grant him a merciful judgment and the reward of his selfless labours. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.